We left at 9:45am, giving the morning overcast a chance to burn off and enjoying much warmer temperatures than the last several rides. I think the low for the ride was a balmy 42 degrees! I told Kevin it was going to be a 26 minute time up Old LaHonda, knowing that usually I’m pretty conservative with my estimates and I’d beat it be a couple minutes, but not today. 26 was about all I had in the tank. That’s OK, this wasn’t supposed to be a fast ride. Apparently, Kevin didn’t get that memo though. Haskins was a moderate 11-something but the run-in from the Flamingo House to Pescadero? Kevin hammered. I mean really hammered, the type of pace where it was all I could do to hold his wheel.
Pescadero was the usual stop at the excellent bakery, although not having the traditional coke (due to my experiment with eliminating caffeine in exchange for lower blood pressure) really sucked. Kevin rubbed it in by having coffee. His second cup. He had another before we left the house.
Instead of the usual run up Tunitas we did 84 back from the coast, just to do something different. Well yes, it’s different, but it’s not better. That stretch from the coast to a mile or so past La Honda just isn’t a whole lot of fun, with its junk-climb rollers that sap your legs. And, of course, there was the issue of trying to hold Kevin’s wheel. How did he suddenly get so strong?
In the end it was a tougher-than-expected 60 miles, and probably our last dry ride for quite a while. The forecast for Tuesday looks messy!
